Short Summary

This coverage is of the Air Force conducting the fifth in a series of eight conventional high explosives tests in support of the Air Force's advanced ICBM technology program, which involves conceptual strategic missile systems collectively known as MX. (Also included footage of the third test taken on August 11, 1977.)
The Department of the Air Force conducted the fifth in a series of eight conventional high explosives tests at 1:00 p.

Description

This coverage is of the Air Force conducting the fifth in a series of eight conventional high explosives tests in support of the Air Force's advanced ICBM technology program, which involves conceptual strategic missile systems collectively known as MX. (Also included footage of the third test taken on August 11, 1977.)
The Department of the Air Force conducted the fifth in a series of eight conventional high explosives tests at 1:00 p.m. EST on December 2, 1977, on the Luke Air Force Range, 12 miles south of Wellton, Arizona.

The test was in support of the Air Force's advanced ICBM technology program, which involves conceptual strategic missile systems collectively known as MX (for Missile System X). (In 1967, after screening several alternate basing concepts,: two were selected -- shelter and buried trench -- to be studied in more detail to validate cost and technical feasibility prior to selecting one as the basing mode. Under both trench and shelter concepts, the missile would move randomly among a number of locations so the exact position is unknown to an attacker.) The tests are evaluating blast and shock survivability characteristics of possible MX protective structures.

In the 2 December test, engineers and technicians from the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico, measured the structural response of a model missile shelter to airblast pressures created by the detonation of 5,000 pounds of high explosives.

The explosives were at one end of a 160-foot long, 26-foot diameter arch simulator facility, and the test model was at the other end. The facility was partially buried to confine the explosion for a fraction of a second, applying desired pressure to the test model.

The test series was first announced in October 1976 and will be conducted by the Weapons Laboratory over a two-year period. No missiles or nuclear weapons are involved in these evaluations.